The Thousandth Woman

So also at the Carlton later; more champagne, of course, and the jokes of the evening to replenish a dwindling store, and the people at the other tables to give a fresh fillip to the game of gossip. Blanche looked as well as any of them in a fresher way than most, and Cazalet a noble creature in all his brand-new glory; and she winced with pride at the huge tip she saw him give the waiter; for an old friend may be proud of an old friend, surely! Then they got a good place for watching more people in the lounge; and the fiddling conductor proved the best worth watching of the lot, and was pronounced the very best performer that Cazalet had ever heard in all his life. Many other items were praised in the same fervent formula, which Blanche confirmed about everything except his brandy and cigar.

Above all was it delightful to feel that their beloved car was waiting for them outside, to whirl them out of all this racket just as late as they liked; for quite early in the week (and this was a glaring aggravation in Martha's eyes) Cazalet had taken lodgings for himself and driver in those very Nell Gwynne Cottages where Hilton Toye had stayed before him.

All the evening nothing had been better of its kind than this music at the very end; and, of course, it was the kind for Blanche and Cazalet, who for his part liked anything with a tune, but could never remember one to save his life. Yet when they played an aged waltz, actually in its second decade, just upon half past twelve, even Cazalet cocked his head and frowned, as though he had heard the thing before.

"I seem to know that," he said. "I believe I've danced to it."

"I have," said Blanche. "Often," she added suddenly; and then, "I suppose you sometimes dance in the bush, Walter?"

"Sometimes."

"That's where it was, then."

"I don't think so. You couldn't get that tremendous long note on a piano. There it goes again – bars and bars of it! That's what I seem to remember."

Blanche's face never changed. "Now, that's the end. They're beginning to put the lights out, Walter. Don't you think we'd better go?"

XII

THE THOUSANDTH MAN

It had been new life to them, but now it was all over. It was the last evening of their week, and they were spending it rather silently on Blanche's balcony.

"I make it at least three hundred," said Cazalet, and knocked out a pipe that might have been a gag. "You see, we were very seldom under fifty!"

"Speak for yourself, please! My longevity's a tender point," said Blanche, who looked as though she had no business to have her hair up, as she sat in a pale cross-fire between a lamp-post and her lighted room.

Cazalet protested that he had only meant their mileage in the car; he made himself extremely intelligible now, as he often would when she rallied him in a serious voice. Evidently that was not the way to rouse him up to-night, and she wanted to cheer him after all that he had done for her. Better perhaps not to burke the matter that she knew was on his mind.

"Well, it's been a heavenly time," she assured him just once more. "And to-morrow it's pretty sure to come all right about Scruton, isn't it?"

"Yes! To-morrow we shall probably have Toye back," he answered with grim inconsequence.

"What has that to do with it, Walter?"

"Oh, nothing, of course."

But still his tone was grim and heavy, with a schoolboy irony that he would not explain but could not keep to himself. So Mr. Toye must be turned out of the conversation, though it was not Blanche who had dragged him in. She wished people would stick to their point. She meant to make people, just for once and for their own good; but it took time to find so many fresh openings, and he only cutting up another pipeful of that really rather objectionable bush tobacco.

"There's one thing I've rather wanted to ask you," she began.

"Yes?" said Cazalet.

"You said the other day that it would mean worry for you in any case – after to-morrow – whether the charge is dismissed or not!"

His wicker chair creaked under him.

"I don't see why it should," she persisted, "if the case falls through."

"Well, that's where I come in," he had to say.

"Surely you mean just the other way about? If they commit the man for trial, then you do come in, I know. It's like your goodness."

"I wish you wouldn't say that! It hurts me!"

"Then will you explain yourself? It's not fair to tell me so much, and then to leave out just the bit that's making you miserable!"

The trusty, sisterly, sensible voice, half bantering but altogether kind, genuinely interested if the least bit inquisitive, too, would have gone to a harder or more hardened heart than beat on Blanche's balcony that night. Yet as Cazalet lighted his pipe he looked old enough to be her father.

"I'll tell you some time," he puffed.

"It's only a case of two heads," said Blanche. "I know you're bothered, and I should like to help, that's all."

"You couldn't."

"How do you know? I believe you're going to devote yourself to this poor man – if you can get him off – I mean, when you do."

"Well?" he said.

"Surely I could help you there! Especially if he's ill," cried Blanche, encouraged by his silence. "I'm not half a bad nurse, really!"

"I'm certain you're not."

"Does he look very ill?"

She had been trying to avoid the direct question as far as possible, but this one seemed so harmless. Yet it was received in a stony silence unlike any that had gone before. It was as though Cazalet neither moved nor breathed, whereas he had been all sighs and fidgets just before. His pipe was out already – that was the one merit of bush tobacco, it required constant attention – and he did not look like lighting it again.

Until to-night they had not mentioned Scruton since the motoring began. That had been a tacit rule of the road, of wayside talk and indoor orgy. But Blanche had always assumed that Cazalet had been to see him in the prison; and now he told her that he never had.

"I can't face him," he cried under his breath, "and that's the truth! Let me get him out of this hole, and I'm his man forever; but until I do, while there's a chance of failing, I simply can't face the fellow. It isn't as if he'd asked to see me. Why should I force myself upon him?"

"He hasn't asked to see you because he doesn't know what you're doing for him!" Blanche leaned forward as eagerly as she was speaking, all her repressed feelings coming to their own in her for just a moment. "He doesn't know because I do believe you wouldn't have him told that you'd arrived, lest he should suspect! You are a brick, Sweep, you really are!"

He was too much of one to sit still under the name. He sprang up, beating his hands. "Why shouldn't I be – to him – to a poor devil who's been through all he's been through? Ten years! Just think of it; no, it's unthinkable to you or me. And it all started in our office; we were to blame for not keeping our eyes open; things couldn't have come to such a pass if we'd done our part, my poor old father for one – I can't help saying it – and I myself for another. Talk about contributory negligence! We were negligent, as well as blind. We didn't know a villain when we saw one, and we let him make another villain under our noses; and the second one was the only one we could see in his true colors, even then. Do you think we owe him nothing now? Don't you think I owe him something, as the only man left to pay?"

But Blanche made no attempt to answer his passionate questions. He had let himself go at last; it relieved her also in a way, for it was the natural man back again on her balcony. But he had set Blanche off thinking on other lines than he intended.

"I'm thinking of what he must have felt he owed Mr. Craven and – and Ethel!" she owned.

"I don't bother my head over either of them," returned Cazalet harshly. "He was never a white man in his lifetime, and she was every inch his daughter. Scruton's the one I pity – because – because I've suffered so much from that man myself."

"But you don't think he did it!" Blanche was sharp enough to interrupt.

"No – no – but if he had!"

"You'd still stand by him?"

"I've told you so before. I meant to take him back to Australia with me – I never told you that – but I meant to take him, and not a soul out there to know who he was." He sighed aloud over the tragic stopper on that plan.